The Twins
The Honeymoon After their storybook wedding, Nicole and Richard went to France for their honeymoon. Nicole's dad had enough in his savings to pay for the trip and stay at a three star hotel in Paris, the city his daughter had always wanted to visit. But instead of the perfection they were expecting, it turned out to be a general headache. As soon as they arrived at the immortal city of lights they got ripped off by a cab driver, who drove them around town on purpose to make them pay more than they should. When they reached the hotel the concierge couldn't find their names in the registry, so they had to spend the night in the lobby until the next day, when another couple was checking out and they could have their room. And the worst part was when they were having dinner at one of the many traditional French restaurants in the area and the waiter asked Richard if he wanted to check the menu, and Richard, who didn't understand a lick of French, thought the waiter was insulting him, so he tried to pick a fight with him. As much as Nicole would try to tell him what that really meant he just didn't listen, and he wouldn't calm down, so Nicole had to drag him back to the hotel, right after apologizing to the poor waiter. After a while of experiencing Paris they decided that the trip wasn't relaxing at all, so they decided to cut it short. What should have been a two-week-long stay turned to a four-day-long torture. When they arrived back home they couldn't help but sigh in relief. They returned to their usual routines almost instantly: Nicole had her job at the Rainbow Factory and Richard searched for one for himself, but as much as he looked and applied for a career he was always turned down. 'You're not qualified', they said. 'You don't have any skills whatsoever', they said. One company actually told him that he smelt funny. After a full month of going through the job section of every single tabloid he could get his hands on, he finally called it quits and decided to stay home. After all, his wife made enough money to provide for the both, so he wasn't worried. The Decision A few months later Nicole was walking up the stairs to head towards her room, when she noticed the white door on her right. It was the last door down the hallway and behind it was a room big enough for a child or two, but it was empty, and that somehow bothered her. When they had first bought that house they had decided that those rooms weren't going to be empty forever, but somewhere along the line they had forgotten that. As Nicole entered her room she was determined to bring that up again to Richard as soon as she had the chance. Later that night as Richard was putting on his pajamas, Nicole entered their room trying to sum up the nerve to discuss that delicate topic with her husband. "Richard, honey?" she could feel her heart start to race. "Yeah?" Richard squeezed his head through the collar of his pajama sweater. "Do you remember the first thing you said when we bought this house?" Nicole waited eagerly for his reply. Richard rubbed his chin in thought. "Oh yeah!" he stuck out his index finger. "I said: 'I sure am going to enjoy having barbeques here!'" "No, not that. The other thing." "About how we needed to hang a basketball hoop out back?" "No…" Nicole placed her hand on her forehead and took a deep breath before continuing. "The thing about how we needed to fill up the rest of the rooms?" Richard's expression turned to thought. "Nah, I think we have enough junk already." "Not fill up like that, fill up like… you know… 'fill up'?" she made air quotes with her fingers as she pronounced those words. Richard's expression turned again, this time to recognition. "Oh…OHHHH..." he had finally understood what she meant. "You mean…" Nicole nodded. Richard gulped nervously. The topic of procreation had been familiar to him since they first started having Sex Ed. in school, but when it came to actually practicing that subject… let's just say he was still a rookie. "Are you sure about this?" he inquired his wife. "Absolutely." she answered, taking a few steps towards him. "Think about it: we have more than enough room, I make more than enough money and I really think a child would bring more joy into our lives." she advanced a few more steps. "So…" she took a few more steps and was now only a few inches away from him, gazing at him seductively. "…what do you say…" she caressed his cheek with her hand. "…Mr. Watterson?" Richard was speechless. He was seeing a side of Nicole he would have never even dreamt about seeing: a flirtatious, sensual, lustful side. Even though he was blushing like a schoolgirl, he liked it. He liked it very much. "Let's do it!" he smiled mischievously at Nicole, who grabbed his sweater collar and pulled him into a deep passionate kiss right away. He returned the kiss with great pleasure as they moved towards the bed. When they both collapsed on the mattress they started to remove each other's clothes. It was going to be a night to remember. The Incident A week later the Rainbow Factory was visited by a group of high school students, who had scheduled a field trip there, and Nicole was assigned to give them the tour, no doubt because she had been on her boss's soft spot since the day she was hired. It would have been a normal work day for her, if it hadn't been for one thing… She had just shown the tour group where they inserted the ingredients necessary to produce a rainbow into one of the many machines operated in the factory, and was now leading them towards the area where they added the glitter. "And after they're turned into all the colors of the rainbow, the final product comes here, where this particular machine sprinkles them with glitter so they can be shiny when they're shot into the sky." she explained to the students, keeping her happy tone constant. "Afterwards, it-" And that's when she felt it: her heart started beating uncontrollably, she was producing more saliva than it would be normal, she got some sort of metallic taste in mouth, she was breathing hardly, and she felt woozy, so woozy she had to lean against one of the building's support beams to keep herself from falling down. "Are you OK?" one of the students from the group came up to her and put her hand on her shoulder. "You look kind of pale." "I don't feel so good… I think-" before she could finish that sentence she felt an acid substance coming up her esophagus. She only had time pick up a nearby trash bin and release a mouthful of vomit into it, making the tour group step back in disgust. She wiped her mouth and stoop up straight. "I am so sorry! This is so unusual! I'm never sick in the…" she froze in shock. "…morning." She threw the bin away and ran out the door, right after telling one of her co-workers to finish the tour for her and tell her boss that she had to take the rest of the day off for health reasons. The Announcement The Babies The Birth "WHERE IS SHE?!" Richard had just arrived at the hospital. He had gotten a call saying Nicole was there, giving birth to his child(ren). After driving like a maniac he was now yelling desperately at the nurse at the reception. "WHERE'S MY WIFE?! SHE'S IN LABOR!" "Oh, you must be Mr. Watterson!" she checked her computer. "She's in Delivery Room 2-B. But you can't-" before she had time to finish Richard had already ran to the elevator and was frenetically pressing the 'up' button. When he got to the right floor he ran down the hall to Delivery Room 2-B, from where a doctor had just come out, fully dressed for the delivery, his gloves drenched in blood. Richard stopped right in front of him, panting hardly and trying to catch his breath. "Mr. Watterson, I presume." Said the doctor, his voice muffled by the surgical mask. "Ye… yeah… that's me…" Richard was breathing with difficulty. "I just got paged saying you'd be here." Continued the doctor. "I'm afraid you can't come in just yet. The delivery is being harder than we thought." Richard stood up straight. "How hard?" just then he heard Nicole scream loudly from inside the room. It sounded like she was being murdered, slowly and painfully. Richard gulped. "I have to go. I'll warn you as soon as it's over." The doctor returned inside, leaving Richard alone in the hallway. He sat on one of the chairs available and waited. Nicole's excruciating pain manifests didn't cease for another four hours, and Richard was starting to get worried. Suddenly a loud scream was heard, then there was silence, then the pain manifests started again for five minutes, and another scream, more louder than the previsious, could be heard, and finally silence. The doctor poked his head through the double doors. "Mr. Watterson? You can come in now." Richard followed the doctor inside, where Nicole was lying unconscious on the bed, her fur in an absolute mess. "Don't worry, she just passed out. The pain and the pressure she applied were too much for her. The nurses will return with your babies momentarily, right after they're done cleaning them." Richard sighed in relief, but then his ears perked up. "'Them'?" Richard's heart started racing. The doctor smiled at him. "Yes, Mr. Watterson. You have twins, a son and a daughter."